A's Sonny Gray is confident enough to clown around

Young pitcher takes on a big role for his team and family

Updated 11:36 pm, Thursday, May 8, 2014

Sonny Gray is congratulated by Curt Young and Mike Gallego after he threw a three-hit shutout against Texas last month.

Sonny Gray is congratulated by Curt Young and Mike Gallego after he threw a three-hit shutout against Texas last month.

Photo: Brandon Wade, Associated Press

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With a glove nearly as long as his leg, Gray was a Pee Wee baseball gamer in Tennessee.

With a glove nearly as long as his leg, Gray was a Pee Wee baseball gamer in Tennessee.

Photo: Photo Courtesy Beth McDonald

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A's pitcher Sonny Gray with his sister.

A's pitcher Sonny Gray with his sister.

Photo: Photo Courtesy Beth McDonald

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A's pitcher Sonny Gray has always had a great sense of humor - something he carried with him from his younger days in Tennessee up to his time with Oakland.

A's pitcher Sonny Gray has always had a great sense of humor - something he carried with him from his younger days in Tennessee up to his time with Oakland.

Photo: Beth McDonald

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BOSTON, MA - MAY 4: Sonny Gray #54 of the Oakland Athletics throws a pitch to David Ortiz #34 of the Boston Red Sox in the first inning against Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park on May 4, 2014 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images) less

BOSTON, MA - MAY 4: Sonny Gray #54 of the Oakland Athletics throws a pitch to David Ortiz #34 of the Boston Red Sox in the first inning against Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park on May 4, 2014 in Boston, ... more

Photo: Jim Rogash, Getty Images

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A's pitcher Sonny Gray as a youth after receiving 40 stitches and a facial fracture.

A's pitcher Sonny Gray as a youth after receiving 40 stitches and a facial fracture.

Photo: Photo Courtesy Beth McDonald

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A's pitcher Sonny Gray has always had a great sense of humor - something he carried with him from his younger days in Tennessee up to his time with Oakland. He's pictured here with his grandmother with the "Escapee from Alcatraz" jacket he bought her. less

A's pitcher Sonny Gray has always had a great sense of humor - something he carried with him from his younger days in Tennessee up to his time with Oakland. He's pictured here with his grandmother with the ... more

Photo: Beth McDonald

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A's pitcher Sonny Gray has always had a great sense of humor - something he carried with him from his younger days in Tennessee up to his time with Oakland. He's pictured here at Halloween with his sisters.

A's pitcher Sonny Gray has always had a great sense of humor - something he carried with him from his younger days in Tennessee up to his time with Oakland. He's pictured here at Halloween with his sisters.

Sean Doolittle and the rest of Oakland's bullpen had an inkling that Sonny Gray had an unusual personality during Gray's first big-league appearance, which came not as a starter but in relief.

Called up July 10 at Pittsburgh, Gray was going to enter the game in the fifth inning and, unaccustomed to warming up as a reliever, he zipped through his preparations. He then plopped back down in the bullpen - utterly unconcerned about his pending big-league debut.

"You'd think he'd be caught up in the moment, tighten up, get nervous," Doolittle said. "But Sonny was so loose. First of all, he was talking to himself in his delivery, like 'Looking good, Sonny,' and no one does that."

Gray was more interested in the bullpen conversation than anything else.

"He came back and sat down with us, so that was kind of weird," Doolittle said. "He asks, 'What are you talking about?' and we were like, 'Don't worry about it, you're about to go in.' And he was like, 'No, tell me,' and he keeps pestering us over the span of one or two pitches, because there are two outs.

"Then he goes into the game, and we were like, 'This is either going to be really good or really bad' - a guy that loosey-goosey before his big-league debut. That's Sonny."

Gray threw two scoreless innings in his first big league game, made one more appearance out of the bullpen, then started 10 games. In the playoffs, he started two games - and was chosen over All-Star Bartolo Colon to pitch Game 5 of the ALDS against Detroit.

Less than a year later. Gray is the A's ace, and he has the second best ERA in the league, at 1.91. He's still not taking himself too seriously, though. He's becoming better known for his offbeat humor, exemplified by last year's creation of a fake Twitter account for former Triple-A teammate Grant Green. Among the tweets from @GreenieLocks8 were discussions of his abs, his favorite Bass Pro Shop cap, and thoughts on how much he missed Gray after Green was traded to the Angels. (Green has since taken over the once-bogus Twitter account.)

Laughs all around

"I'm just goofy. I always grew up not caring what other people think," Gray said. "I have a good time making other people laugh, making myself laugh. I enjoy other people's company without any bias or judging anyone. I'll go out there and sing, I don't care."

Everyone who knows Gray has a laundry list of funny stories about him.

Tim Corbin, Gray's coach at Vanderbilt, likes to talk about the time he went to see Gray perform as Troy Bolton in "High School Musical" at Smyrna (Tenn.) High School.

"I was sitting there with my wife, Maggie, and two girls, in an audience of 300 people, and I was messing around with my phone - I don't know how Sonny saw that, with all the singing and dancing going on - but I suddenly get this text: 'Dog, you're ugly. Pay attention,' " Corbin said. "He sent it from the stage.

"He's a unique soul. If you knew him, you attended the church of Sonny. He was it. The culture is better with him in it."

Gray's family can recite hilarious moments for hours. But the best-known biographical detail is a sad one. When Gray was 14, his father, Jesse, was killed in a car wreck returning from work one morning, leaving his wife, Cindy, and children Jessica, Sonny and Katie.

"It was the early morning, I was a kid, not knowing what to expect," Gray said. "My mom woke us up, and when we got there, we knew it was pretty serious. I was young, a freshman, but you don't know what you're getting into going to the hospital at 4 in the morning."

Father and son were "very, very close," said Gray, whose dad was his first baseball coach and taught him to love and to respect the game.

The night of the accident, Gray asked if he could play, as scheduled, in Smyrna High's football game. He told coaches who came to the hospital that it's what his dad would have wanted.

"It never crossed my mind not to play at all," Gray said. "It was a cool experience, the actual game. We won, we did."

'The man of the family'

In the coming weeks, well-meaning adults kept coming up to Gray and telling him, "You're the man of the family, you've got to take care of your mom and sisters now," his aunt, Beth McDonald, recalled.

"Sonny asked my husband (Rick), 'Do I have to get a job?' " McDonald said. "We said, 'Sonny, you only have to take care of you, we will take care of everyone else.' "

"Sonny had to grow up really fast," said Derek Johnson, Gray's pitching coach at Vanderbilt. "I know he felt a responsibility to try to fill his father's role - what a lot of weight for a young kid. The family is really close, and Sonny helped to hold it all together. He's mature beyond his years."

Smyrna baseball coach Barry Vetter also lost his father as a young man, and the two had several conversations about it.

Looking out for Sonny

"I told him, 'You don't have to replace your dad, just be a good son and brother,' " Vetter said. "He's had a lot of really good people around him, but it still would have been easy for him to go in the wrong direction. Everyone kept an eye on him because everyone knew he was special."

Smyrna is a small, close-knit town and it became a major support system for a kid who was turning into a two-sport star. Gray was an outstanding quarterback and led Smyrna to two state titles.

"He was the centerpiece of the team, a real Friday night quarterback, the ultimate athlete," Johnson said.

"I'd compare him to Doug Flutie or Johnny Manziel, a smaller-sized kid who seemed like he could pull off anything." said Corbin, who attended all of Gray's football games. "Everyone knew he'd lost his dad, and he was just beloved by the community."

Gray played almost every position for the school's baseball team, whatever was necessary.

"He's the one coaches like me wait a career to get," Vetter said. "We'd be losing by one run, and he'd tell a teammate, 'Just get on base and I'll win the game.' He'd hit a home run, say, 'Give me the ball,' and he'd go out and pitch one perfect inning to finish the game."

Leveling the playing field

Many of the stories about Gray center on his hyper-competitiveness. McDonald talks about Gray bowling left-handed and still beating everyone, and about how Gray got up early one Easter morning to mow the lawn, convinced his mother had beaten him twice at croquet the night before because of the height of the grass.

Johnson saw Gray's brashness the very first time he met him. Gray was 15 and playing in a tournament at the school, but wandered over to watch the collegians throw bullpen sessions.

"Sonny was there, kind of watching them throw - this short, almost white-haired little guy - and he makes this comment, like, 'I already throw harder than that guy right now,' " said Johnson, who is now a minor-league pitching instructor with the Cubs. "He smiled and laughed. It turned out he was right.

A winning smile

"Sonny is real special. He flashes that smile and you fall in love with him right then and there."

Vetter recalled one time that Gray wasn't scheduled to pitch, and an opposing player mocked Gray's size. Gray asked to start the game, anyway. He threw a shutout.

Then there are the quirky things Gray does. His family hoots when they talk about his Guinness beer cap, which Gray got because he thought it said "Genius." More than anything, though, the family talks about the lovability that goes along with Gray's silliness. McDonald said that when the family was at Pier 39 the day before this season started, Gray's beloved grandmother, Patsy Waldrop, known as "Ninaw," was cold. So he raced off and came back with a gift - a jacket emblazoned "Alcatraz Reject - I'm Too Cute."

"Sonny thought that was just the funniest thing," McDonald said. "He's just a goofball, and such a sweet boy. His father would be so proud."

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